Monday, August 22, 2005
Caffeine and poetry
We had a coffee house at church tonight, and I stupidly drank the caffeinated variety...so I have a few more hours in me before I'll manage to get to bed. Whatever shall I do with myself? Blog, my friends...I shall blog.
Tonight's coffee house was a time for people to share psalms and poems--either written in response to the recent sermon series on the Psalms, or just poems, etc. in general. The group was a pretty good mix of people at different ages and places in life, and it was really cool to hear what everyone had to share. I purposely didn't bring any of my poems with me--partly because I haven't written much lately, and partly because I have a really hard time sharing personal stuff in front of large-ish groups. But it was a great setting, and with what other people were sharing, I felt like I might have even been persuaded to read, had I brought something with me. This is of course all in theory, and had I had a poem burning a hole in my pocket, I probably would have chickened out anyway.
When I got home, I was inspired to sort through some of my poems. I was going through a folder that contained jr. high, high school and early college, pre-creative-writing-class poems, and I came to this conclusion: I have written a lot of crappy poetry. A LOT. I can be pretty sentimental about keeping stuff, but a large portion of that folder got laughed at and thrown in the trash. I feel like such a traitor to my teenage self.
But, when it comes to teen angst poetry of the "I wish he would like me" variety, this one wasn't so bad. It's kind of sweet. I offer to you the following, written when I was in high school in the midst of one of my life's many unrequited crushes. (I may later regret this caffeine-induced posting. Don't mock my high school self, she's sensitive.)
Wondering
I sit in the darkness,
wondering.
Are you missing me as much as I
am missing you?
Are you sitting in the darkness, too?
Are you thinking of me
and wishing?
Wishing, like me
that you were here
or I was there?
I wish I could see your smile,
I wish I could hear your voice.
Even though we're miles apart
I still sit here
far away from you,
and wondering,
Do you miss me, too?
Tonight's coffee house was a time for people to share psalms and poems--either written in response to the recent sermon series on the Psalms, or just poems, etc. in general. The group was a pretty good mix of people at different ages and places in life, and it was really cool to hear what everyone had to share. I purposely didn't bring any of my poems with me--partly because I haven't written much lately, and partly because I have a really hard time sharing personal stuff in front of large-ish groups. But it was a great setting, and with what other people were sharing, I felt like I might have even been persuaded to read, had I brought something with me. This is of course all in theory, and had I had a poem burning a hole in my pocket, I probably would have chickened out anyway.
When I got home, I was inspired to sort through some of my poems. I was going through a folder that contained jr. high, high school and early college, pre-creative-writing-class poems, and I came to this conclusion: I have written a lot of crappy poetry. A LOT. I can be pretty sentimental about keeping stuff, but a large portion of that folder got laughed at and thrown in the trash. I feel like such a traitor to my teenage self.
But, when it comes to teen angst poetry of the "I wish he would like me" variety, this one wasn't so bad. It's kind of sweet. I offer to you the following, written when I was in high school in the midst of one of my life's many unrequited crushes. (I may later regret this caffeine-induced posting. Don't mock my high school self, she's sensitive.)
Wondering
I sit in the darkness,
wondering.
Are you missing me as much as I
am missing you?
Are you sitting in the darkness, too?
Are you thinking of me
and wishing?
Wishing, like me
that you were here
or I was there?
I wish I could see your smile,
I wish I could hear your voice.
Even though we're miles apart
I still sit here
far away from you,
and wondering,
Do you miss me, too?
| posted by Barbara | 8:17 AM